Secrets : Gallifreyan Nightmares
by Dr.Dalek
Summary: Theta is plagued by nightmares. And so is the Doctor. But not all monsters hide beneath the bed... Another Theta/Koschei story. Warning: implied violence, aftermath of abuse but quite fluffy in the end. Written for Otorisosa-kan's Music Prompt Exchange Challenge.


**Author's Note** : This story is part of Otorisosa-kan's Music Prompt Exchange Challenge. And I can only recommend it. It's fun!  
 **My song** : ' **Kizami's Awakening** ' from 'Corpse Party' picked for my by **Otorisosa-kan**.

* * *

There was the voice.  
 _His_ voice.  
His hearty laughs; abysmal and bloodcurdling like a wolf's howl.  
And Theta was trapped again...

 _The Doctor's eyes snapped open; Jack stared back at him, smiling a bit too bashful for the Doctor's taste; which was why he smacked him with a pillow._

 _"_ _What are you doing in my bed?!" the Doctor yelped.  
"You had bad dreams" Jack replied while rubbing his cheeks. Whatever the Doctor kept in his pillows, it made them harder than he had expected.  
"I am _having _a bad dream" the Doctor yelled "You are in my bed!"  
"Alright, calm down;" Jack tried putting his mind at ease "I didn't do anything."  
"Except for kneeling above me and trying to kiss me, you mean" the Doctor replied huffish, pushing Jack off the duvet "and before you say anything stupid I may be old but I definitely haven't slept for a hundred years and needed kissing alive."_

 _"_ _All I wanted" Jack said while getting out of the bed "was to wake you up."  
"I'm awake now" the Doctor grumbled, turning over in his bed.  
Jack sighed and leaned against the doorpost. Becoming aware that only his immediate departure would save him from losing another argument with the Doctor and possibly even a clip around the ears Jack said:  
"I need some air" and pushed open the squeaking door before slamming it shut._

 _With a grunt the Doctor rolled over in his bed.  
He couldn't have had nightmares, could he? No. He hadn't had them for years.  
Jack had just lied to him because he'd been caught in the act (well, thankfully, before being caught in the act) and was too embarrassed to admit that he'd snuggled up to the Doctor in his sleep._

 _Humans.  
The Doctor grumbled. Ha!  
And especially the fifty-first century was a bad vintage. _

_Convincing himself that he was due some sleep (and that he could eradicate the whole of humanity whenever he wanted to), the Doctor felt his eyelids growing heavier and shutting on their own accord._

Running. Always running.  
Never stopping.  
Twigs snapping beneath his feet he could feel the cold night air condensing on his skin, mingling with the cold sweat.  
He could feel it. He was being followed. He was following him, hiding, melding with the mist around him, no matter how far he ran he was there, searching him, taunting him... hurting him...

 _"_ _Wake up!"_

Theta dug his nails into the duvet as he sat up straight, his clothes soaked in sweat.  
"Theta, it's me" he heard a familiar voice beside his bed "You have locked the door but your window was open..."  
Theta jumped out of his bed, stumbling onto his feet.  
"Alright, calm down" the one beside his bed said "Take deep breaths, come on, do it with me...in... and out...in... Theta, come on, your face is getting pale again...and out... No, don't faint..."

Theta took a deep breath, his eyes snapping open again. His head hurt.

"You're a coward."  
He looked up, meeting Koschei's stern gaze while he scrambled up. Theta spared both of them a reply; first of all because it was one of the nicest greetings he'd received from Koschei so far; and secondly because his mind was a mess.  
"I..." Theta began but was cut off by Koschei nearly simultaneously,  
"I _know_. You woke up as I entered your room and panicked."  
Koschei lifted Theta off the ground, dragging him to the bed while mumbling: "Not to mention your pathetic breakdown and the even more pathetic bloodstain you've left on the floor."

"I thought..." Theta coughed "...there was someone in my room."  
"Yes" replied Koschei with an appalling lack of patience "I."  
Theta shifted in his arms, trying to get to his feet again.  
"No Kosch, you don't understand, there was _someone_..."  
Koschei pushed Theta back into the bed. He folded his arms.  
Theta crouched beneath the blanket, meeting Koschei's enraged glare nervously. Theta was always scared of Koschei when he looked like that; when the two golden suns that his eyes were turned into supernovas...

" _Him_?"  
Koschei asked after a minute's silence, the sharpness of his words cutting through the cold night air.  
Theta didn't even dare to nod.  
"You're afraid of _him_? Someone who, you think, was following your through the thicket? Someone you haven't even a name for?"  
Theta crouched down further, his face half hidden under the blanket.

Koschei growled before sitting down on the edge of the bed.  
A cold blast of wind whirled past them, blowing in the winter's first snowflakes.  
As Theta followed one tiny ice crystal with his eyes he met Koschei's glare, once more.

"What's this all about?" he asked quietly.  
Theta snuggled against the blanket.  
"I mean... you are a coward, I know that for a reason. But..." Koschei stared into Theta's eyes; or, apparently, right through them into his mind,  
"but nightmares and panic attacks... that's not really like you, is it?"  
Theta bit down on his lower lip and stared at the ceiling motionless.

"I mean it" Koschei went on. One of his hands had touched Theta's cold forehead; and yet he felt the fire burning within him. "That's not like you at all."

"You weren't there."

Koschei flinched at the sharpness of Theta's words and at the sudden reproachful nature of his reply; but he wouldn't have been 'let's-put-rats-into-the-air-vent-and-see-what-happens'-Koschei if he couldn't readjust the blank mask of a face radiating innocence instantly. He hadn't to ask Theta for continuing; he knew that he would.

"You weren't there" Theta repeated, his hands shaking underneath the blanket "and I was all alone. You left me, Koschei, you ran off while we'd been in the forest of Hrikhsh, _together_ in the forest of Hrikhsh. You just disappeared and I..."  
"What?" Koschei leaned closer, his hands cradling Theta's face fondly.  
"I... I was so scared. Someone was there Koschei, I swear to you Koschei, someone had been following us. And you had left me all alone."

Koschei didn't know what scared him more; Theta's earnest voice or the tears forming in his eyes.  
He leaped at Theta, rolling and tossing on the duvet before he'd found his way beneath the blanket, cuddling Theta, holding him close and snuggling up against him.  
Theta shivered underneath his touch.

"He'd been there, Kosch... someone had been there... and he..."  
It was no use trying to bite back the tears any longer, Theta had to admit. All he could do right now was giving in.  
"I tripped... I must have tripped over a stump... I was cornered. No more running and he was... he was right behind me."  
Koschei breathed quietly, nestling his cheeks up against Theta's neck.

"He touched me, Koschei... he touched me, groping me, tearing at my clothes, I couldn't... he was kneeling above me, abusing me, feeling up my warm skin, touching me everywhere while I..."

"That's enough" Koschei ordered. Theta fell silent at his coldly commanding voice.  
He slid closer, his head resting on Koschei's chest while hot tears stung his eyes and streamed down his blushing cheeks.

"I don't want to hear anymore of this" Koschei replied in hushed tones. Theta nodded blankly.  
"And now go to sleep."

Theta cringed in Koschei's arms as Koschei dug his nails into Theta's flesh. He tightened his grip, turned over in the bed, whereby he rolled both of them onto their sides, and closed his eyes while moving his forehead against Theta's.  
Theta knew what it meant; Koschei wanted to get in, to get into his thoughts.  
But he wouldn't let him.

The cold wind pushed open the window some more, causing it to creak in its hinges.  
And Theta thought he was going die, die of shame and guilt.

 _The Doctor growled as his eyes snapped open.  
What was worse than having a nightmare, he'd wondered? Having a nightmare_ inside _a nightmare. Or a memory, to be precise.  
While turning over he kicked the sleeping figure beside him. It flinched and seemed to unravel.  
The Doctor was in a bad mood; and he cursed himself for gaining over nine hundred years of age without the slightest signs of senior moments. No, worse yet, his memory seemed to become better and better over the years.  
"Came crawling back, have ya?" grumbled the Doctor "Jack, you're pathetic."  
The figure sat up, still half hidden beneath the blanket.  
"I'm not Jack."  
The Doctor pushed back the sheets to reveal a groggy Master; still the Master couldn't bite back a smile "And neither am I pathetic."  
The Doctor stared at him in bewilderment.  
"...and you didn't let me into your head after that incident in your room for weeks, I reckon" the Master went on as he kicked back the sheets and stood up.  
"What are you...?" the Doctor began but was cut off by the Master.  
"You have very loud dreams, if you don't mind me saying."  
"No, I meant: What are you doing here?" the Doctor retorted. _

_The Master shrugged.  
"I'm on an adventure."  
"Adventure?" repeated the Doctor as if he'd just discovered something disgustingly sticky in the corner of his mouth.  
"You know... just passing by... you can call it travelling, whatever you like."  
The Master flashed him a grin that made his blood curdle._

 _"_ _Where's Jack?" the Doctor asked for lack of anything sensible.  
"Where he won't bother us" the Master replied levelly.  
"Where _is _he?" the Doctor repeated empathic.  
"Oh, don't give me that, I don't like that 'I'm here to protect the clearly underdeveloped beings' rights' look, you can wipe that complacent look off your face, alright?" The Master snapped and folded his arms in front of his chest. "Anyway, he's just locked up in the TARDIS' bathroom. One of the TARDIS' bathrooms. I think it was a bathroom, it looked like one."  
"You mean with a shower curtain and a shower head and a lot of cabinets."  
"Yeah" the Master nodded "and a hose and a discharge through for the blood and so on."  
The Doctor's forehead wrinkled.  
"Just kidding" the Master sniggered "at least he isn't dead."  
The Doctor gave him a piercing glance.  
"Yet" added the Master, feeling found out._

 _"_ _Are you planning on staying?" the Doctor asked as he saw the Master stretching in his undergarments, his pyjamas neatly folded in front of him.  
"Just for a while" the Master replied "I'm not going to keep you."  
"Keep me as what?" the Doctor asked, only listening half-heartedly.  
"Keep you at all" the Master replied.  
And then he met his gaze._

 _"_ _You're still mad at me, aren't you?" he asked as he sat down on the bed again. "Nearly a thousand years have passed since then and you're still angry about it; your resentfulness makes a cat look like a pardoning animal." The Master chuckled quietly._

 _"_ _Why didn't you say anything?" the Doctor asked coldly. The Master's smile vanished.  
"Why didn't you try to comfort me? Isn't that what friends are supposed to do? Support one another? Or just trying to help?"  
"How could I've helped you?" the Master replied bitterly "it had already happened."  
The Doctor growled underneath his breath.  
"You could have said something nice to me; you could have tried to cheer me up!"  
"Why bother?" the Master asked. The Doctor was about to smack him when he added: "I had already let you down."  
The Doctor stared at him intently, watching the Master sighing. Sometimes, he thought, he could still see him... the fractious, boisterous youngster he'd used to know... with a pair of dreaming eyes, dreaming of worlds beyond his reach..._

 _"_ _And I'm sorry" the Master added contritely "because I know I shouldn't have abandoned you. And I'm sorry for being too proud and too hurt not to say anything after you had worked up the courage to tell me all about it. But that's just what I am" the Master smiled at him so shyly it warmed the Doctor's old hearts "a coward; even worse than you."_

 _The Doctor had evaded the Master's gaze. And he continued to do so as he spoke the words he never thought he would say to him.  
"Thank you."  
"Don't mention it" the Master had nearly cut him off "and don't go all pathetic on me now, I can't stand your cloyed sentiments."_

 _The Doctor leaned in the door way, quietly smiling to himself.  
It didn't bother him at all that he knew that he looked stupid._

 _"_ _So" the Master said, suddenly standing beside the Doctor, while putting his arm around his shoulders "you don't have another spare bathroom I could make use of, have you?"  
The Doctor smiled mildly.  
Then he tore off the Master's clothes._

* * *

 **Author's Note** : Thanks for reading! And don't forget: next week I'll start my Doctor Who Advent calendar!


End file.
